The author of Composing a Life and a professor emerita of anthropology and English at George Mason University—as well as the daughter of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson—Mary Catherine Bateson sees aging today as an "improvisational art form calling for imagination and willingness to learn." In this ardent, affirming study, she relates the experiences of individual men and women—herself included—who, upon entering their 50s, have found new meaning and ways to contribute to society, redirecting their lives in a new stage of the human life cycle that she calls "Adulthood II."

"Today's grandparents, [the author] says, are increasingly able to combine continuing mobility with their depth of experience, hence, the age of active wisdom. This model has been a work-in-progress for Bateson, its genesis the time she spent as a teaching assistant for the psychologist Erik Erikson's course on the human life cycles, or eight ages of man. She looked to his theories as she passed through stages of her own life, and now, in her seventies, she interviews others who are doing similar research on this enriched stage of adulthood—including such individuals as Jane Fonda—and who are searching for the relationship between spirituality and age. Especially in light of 9/11, Bateson considers herself an activist for peace and justice and stresses the importance, in our years of unanticipated longevity, to continue to be willing to learn."—Booklist